As mobile electronic devices have matured, a multitude of wireless radio technologies have been developed to enable network connectivity. Voice network enabled mobile devices use various radio technologies to access a mobile voice network. Additionally, many devices support data technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Near Field Communication (NFC), as well as various mobile data network connections all compete for power resources. In some instances, aspects of the technologies that have enabled the increase in the throughput of wireless data networks devices has also increased the power consumption of those devices as a result. For example, in mobile devices equipped with Long Term Evolution (LTE) radios, multiple antennas are used for the LTE connection. Additionally, some voice enabled mobile devices equipped with LTE require a companion voice network connection in parallel to the LTE data connection, further increasing power consumption. In general, the multitude of radio technologies available on modern mobile devices can result in a significant impact on a device's power budget.
Network device power consumption can be especially noticeable when background data transfers are in use. In such instances, a mobile device in an otherwise idle state can maintain a network connection to push or pull data to maintain a sync relationship with an e-mail or calendar server, or to receive push messages from an application, such as, for example, a social networking application, a distributed storage network service, or some other application or service that conducts data transactions in the background while a device is otherwise idle. If a mobile device's network is continually active, even while the device is seemingly idle and not being actively used, the device can experience rapid power drain and harm user experience.